In a production procedure of an electronic device, such as an IC device, an electronic device testing apparatus for testing performance and functions of finally produced IC devices and devices at its intermediate stage, etc. is necessary.
A test of an IC device by using an electronic device testing apparatus is performed, for example, as below. After conveying an IC device to be tested to above a test head attached with a socket, the IC device is pressed to be loaded on the socket, so that connection terminals of the socket are brought to contact with external terminals of the IC device. As a result, the IC device is electrically connected to a tester main body through the socket, the test head and a cable. Then, by applying a test signal supplied from the tester main body to the test head via the cable to the IC device and sending a response signal read from the IC device to the tester main body via the test head and the cable, electric characteristics of the IC device are measured.
The above test is often conducted by imposing a thermal stress on an IC device to be tested. As a method of giving a thermal stress to the IC device, for example, a method of heating the IC device to be a predetermined temperature before conveying it to the test head is used and, furthermore, a method of heating the IC device by providing a heater to a device for conveying the IC device so as not to lower the temperature of the heated IC device 8 in its conveying step is used.
Here, depending on a kind of the IC device to be tested, as for a die (IC chip) part composed of the integrated circuit, it is necessary not to break a fine integrated circuit by an excessive load at the time of pressing, and as for a substrate part of the IC device, a contact mistake (imperfect contact with contact terminals of the socket) has to be prevented by giving a certain amount of load. Namely, the pressing load has to be changed between a die part and other substrate part of the IC device in some cases. Furthermore, since it is the die portion of the IC device that the temperature matters in an actual use, the thermal stress is preferably given particularly to the die.
Thus, conventionally, a test has been conducted by absorbing and pressing an IC device to be tested by an IC device suction device provided with a suction/pressing portion 15P as shown in FIG. 5. The conventional suction/pressing portion 15P comprises a support member 51P driven in the Z-axis direction by a Z-axis actuator, a joint member 52P provided to a peripheral portion on the lower side of the support member 51P, a heat block 53P provided at the center portion on the lower side of the support member 51P, a first pusher 55P provided on the lower side of the heat block 53P for pressing a die 81 of an IC device 8, and a second pusher 56P provided on the lower side of the joint member 52P for pressing a substrate 82 of the IC device 8; and performs temperature control and load management of the IC device 8 (prevention of an excessive load on the die 81 and prevention of a contact mistake of the substrate 82) by heating and pressing the die 81 of the IC device 8 by the first pusher 55P contacting with the heat block 53P and pressing the substrate 82 of the IC device 8 by the second pusher 56P.
However, when testing different kinds of IC devices 8, it was necessary to modify and change respective members to be corresponding to the respective IC devices in the suction/pressing portion 15P configured as above and the operation took a large amount of cost and time. Also, since surface conformance of a lower surface of the heat block 53P and an upper surface of the first pusher 55P, and surface conformance of a lower surface of the first pusher 55P and an upper surface of the die 81 were not secured, uniform pressing with an accurate load against the fine die 81 of the IC device 8 was not possible, and a heat transfer property from the heat block 53 to the die 81 of the IC device 8 via the first pusher 55 was poor, so that reliable temperature control of the die 81 was not able to be made.
Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, there was a proposal of providing a spring 54P between the supporting member 51P and the heat block 53P so as to bias them in the direction of separating the two. In a suction/pressing portion 15P′ configured as above, a load on the die 81 of the IC device 8 can be managed by securing a certain range due to the elastic effect of the spring 54P, so that it is possible to respond to changes of kinds of the IC devices 8 without changing the respective members in some cases. However, when load management by the same spring 54P is not possible, the spring 54P has to be changed and the replacing operation of the spring 54P is very cumbersome.
Also, problems caused by a surface conformance defect can be improved to some extent by the elastic effect of the spring 54P, however, both of the surface conformance of the lower surface of the heat block 53P and the upper surface of the first pusher 55P and surface conformance of the lower surface of the first pusher 55P and the upper surface of the die 81 of the IC device 8 are not always secured, and uniform pressing with an accurate load and reliable temperature control have not been always attained.